ST. GEORGE, Utah, Oct. 3, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — The mother of missing St. George teenager Macin Smith is convinced her son is still alive.
Tracey Bratt-Smith has told Gephardt Daily many times that she believes Macin, who went missing 13 months ago, is out there somewhere.
From the number of possible sightings there have been of her youngest son, who was 17 when he went missing, it would seem possible she is correct in her assumption.
Every time there is a sighting, the tight-knit family endures a roller coaster of emotions until that lead is checked out. It’s a process the family has become more accustomed to, but as time goes on, it doesn’t get any easier, and thus far, for every surge of hope, a crushing disappointment has followed when the sighting turns out not to be Macin.
Bratt-Smith and her husband, Darrin Smith, have spoken to Gephardt Daily about nearly every facet of their son’s disappearance and the effect it has had on them. With her usual frankness, Brat-Smith agreed to speak exclusively about what it’s like to be given shreds of hope that are then taken away again.
Macin, the last of the Smith’s six children living at home, walked way from home in the early morning hours of Sept. 1, 2015, when his parents thought he was on his way to school.
Macin left behind his cellphone, wallet and laptop, and effectively vanished without a trace.
Since then, Macin’s family and friends have had not one shred of solid evidence that Macin is still alive. The family has worked tirelessly with professional search organization Red Rock Search and Rescue and police to bring him home. There is even a $10,000 reward in place, offered for information leading to his safe return.
In the beginning, Bratt-Smith said she and her husband thought it would be only a matter of time before someone somewhere saw Macin and the family would be reunited.
“Although Macin had ‘taken off’ before when we lived in Canada, he came back within a few hours,” she said. “We thought he was blowing off steam again. Surely somebody had seen something. We were optimistic.”
She added that, initially, the family was a lot more trusting of the sightings.
“We would jump on anything and everything,” Bratt-Smith said. “Now, we ask for a lot more details before we act. There have been multiple sightings where the individual that was reporting was ‘100 percent sure’ they saw Macin, but when you fact check on the height or markings or ask about mannerisms, we are able to rule it out right away. It’s difficult for the community to know for sure unless they actually knew Macin… to confirm that it is Macin.”
She said she would rather have people call in with a lead than to withhold any information or intuition, but as time goes on, there are certain shortcuts that can help the family and law enforcement quickly deduce whether a sighting is credible.
“The ideal would be a picture,” Bratt-Smith said. “We have been able to rule out sightings quickly when the public will send in a picture. I know that’s not always possible. We’ve had some incredibly dedicated individuals who will drive around and around or follow potential ‘Macins’ on foot just to get a photo, and that’s been the best resource so far.”
She said although there have been sightings that seem 100 percent credible, as time goes on she has to fight harder to remain optimistic.
“I think the most credible one we got was at Panda Express in West Valley City, but the cameras there somehow weren’t working at that time,” Bratt-Smith said. “This was in August. It was by two sisters that gave this teen some money for the bus. I had them listen to Macin’s voice recording on his phone, and they said it was a match. Macin’s speech is slightly unique, so I always ask about that.
“I remain hopeful in my heart, but sometimes my logical brain says differently that Macin is still out there. The cynical Tracey looks at the fact that there has been no Internet interaction or engagement from his email, social media or gaming system. For a boy that was addicted to the Internet, you would think there would be some electronic footprint. There has been none. So we keep searching, little by little. If we had unlimited resources, I would have a billboard of his face on every street corner.”
Bratt-Smith said there have been enough leads at this stage in the search efforts that a system has been implemented to handle them.
“When we get a lead, depending on the area, typically if it looks hopeful after asking a few questions to the reporting individual, I will send it to the St George Police Department to the detective department and have them check it out,” she said. “The Las Vegas leads go to Red Rock Search and Rescue, but they have also been good to check out some Utah leads as well for us.
“The emotional roller coaster can be overwhelming at times. I remember one lady commenting on the website, ‘If that were my child, I would be at that person’s door and stay there until I found them,’ or something close to that wording. The reality is I still need to provide for the family and pay bills and hold a job while simultaneously looking for Macin. I don’t have the flexibility of dropping everything every time someone thinks they have seen him. I would love to look for Macin full time if we had the means. I think it could be a full time job for a few individuals actually. There’s the social media piece, active searches in multiple areas, publicity as a whole, following up on leads, service projects, communication and fundraisers.”
And as for her general state of mind 13 months on from Macin’s disappearance, Bratt-Smith likens moving forward without any concrete answers to an endurance race.
“I’m able to put on my superficial ‘everything’s okay’ for a while, but it is draining,” she said. “I try and function ‘normally,’ but a mother’s love for a child is so strong that it physically hurts everyday while there is a separation. No matter what you try to fill it with, the void is still there. Macin was loved by many and the ripple effect continues. I know he would have no idea, the impact his life has had on us. We will keep up the fight until we have some answers, but I think it’s going to be an endurance race that none of us signed up for.”
Bratt-Smith and other family members have posted Facebook updates almost every day to the Help Find Macin Smith page, whose 15,693 members are known collectively as Macin’s Army, in the hope of bringing him home.
Macin did leave a note, which his parents discovered a week later folded inside his wallet. They have not released the contents, preferring to say the note contained an “intent,” which led them to believe he may have planned to harm himself.
Macin is 6-feet-4-inches tall and weighs 200 pounds. He has light blue eyes, and he had short blond hair when he went missing. The Smith family moved to Utah from Canada in spring last year, and there have been search efforts for him there, too.
Anyone with information about Macin is asked to call the St. George Police Department at 435-627-4300, or David Cummings at RRSAR at 702-787-4068.
To watch Bill Gephardt’s August interview with Tracey Bratt-Smith and Darrin Smith, click below.
